Reasons to embrace grant writing

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Welcome to the Clinician Researcher podcast, where academic clinicians learn the skills

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to build their own research program, whether or not they have a mentor.

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As clinicians, we spend a decade or more as trainees learning to take care of patients.

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When we finally start our careers, we want to build research programs, but then we find

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that our years of clinical training did not adequately prepare us to lead our research

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program.

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Through no fault of our own, we struggle to find mentors, and when we can't, we quit.

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However, clinicians hold the keys to the greatest research breakthroughs.

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For this reason, the Clinician Researcher podcast exists to give academic clinicians

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the tools to build their own research program, whether or not they have a mentor.

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Now introducing your host, Toyosi Onwuemene.

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Welcome to the Clinician Researcher podcast.

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I'm your host Toyosi Onwuemene, and it is a pleasure to be talking with you today.

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Today I am talking about whether grants are really necessary.

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As a faculty member, do you really, really need grants?

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Like really?

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And I think the short answer to that is no, you don't have to write grants to be a faculty

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member, but I want to convince you that you should consider incorporating it into your

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academic journey if it's not already part of your academic journey.

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And for most of you who are listening, because this podcast is really aimed at clinician

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scientists, you are already writing your grants, this is just what you're doing.

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And so I'm talking to you, I don't necessarily need to sell you on the fact that grant writing

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is important, but what I do want to sell you on is why you should enjoy the process, why

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you shouldn't slog through it, just swinging from opportunity to opportunity in frustration,

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why you should sit down and think about the benefits that you get from grant writing,

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and why you should enjoy it.

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I really am here to help you enjoy it, because I think that many times when something feels

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like drudgery to us, when we feel like, oh my gosh, I have to do this, it just makes

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it so much harder.

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And so the question is, how can we reframe our experience so that we enjoy the journey?

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Because really, at the end of all of this academic career is really the journey, the

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joy of the journey, and all the other stuff kind of melts away.

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Like, yeah, there is some personal satisfaction that comes from knowing that, oh, over the

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course of my career, I've been continuously funded, I've had all these big grants, they've

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been so awesome, there's that.

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But to be able to say I got all of that and I loved every step of the journey, oh my goodness,

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that's such a beautiful gift, and I wish you that.

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I absolutely wish you that.

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And I will tell you that when I started on my journey, grants to me were just a necessary

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evil.

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Like they said I needed to do it, and I was like, sure, there, I wrote the grant, I submitted

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it, thank you.

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You can hear the bad attitude and the way I'm even saying it.

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I mean, it was just one of those things where it was like, well, you said I needed to do

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it, done.

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But really, ugh, that kind of energy is not really sustainable.

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You can only pull out enough energy to write a grant out of like a feeling of obligation.

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You can do that for a two to three month period of writing a grant, but you cannot sustain

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a career on feeling disdainful about writing grants, or feeling like it's a waste of your

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time and energy, or feeling like you hate the process.

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It just is so hard.

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And anyway, so I started with that kind of attitude, and over time, I've come to love

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grant writing.

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I really do.

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And I think one of the reasons I love grant writing now is because I write about things

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that I care about.

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I write about things I want to see change.

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I write about spaces in which I want to see impact.

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Writing about the future that I wish to see.

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And oh my goodness, it's such a powerful experience.

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I love the end of pulling together a proposal because it's like, oh my goodness, imagine

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if this were done, if this work actually happens, it would be so awesome.

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And it's such a powerful feeling where it's like, okay, let's not wait.

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How can we do this now?

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It's so, so awesome.

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So anyway, I want to share with you reasons to think about grant writing.

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And I'm inviting you to think about how the journey can be a pleasant thing for you rather

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than a treasury that you have to endure.

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The first thing I want to get out of the way is that grants are necessary for securing

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funding.

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Yep, you want money to run your research program, then you should apply for grants.

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And actually, maybe I'll pause and say that, you know, there are some people who are making

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their research work through philanthropy.

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There are some people who are finding other ways to get money without necessarily doing

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the whole application process.

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And I will say that if that's you, good for you.

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It's not most people.

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And for the most part, in today's market, if you're going to move significant pieces

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of research forward, you are going to have to partner with people who have the money.

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Now I have known of researchers who are independently wealthy and they fund their own research program.

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I would tell you that that is not the norm.

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For the most part, if you're going to get funding for a program of study, you really

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do need to partner with a funding agency.

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And so the way to money is writing grant proposals.

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One way to money, but the main way to money is writing grant proposals.

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And so funding is one of the reasons.

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I'm just going to get that out of the way, first of all, to get grant money to fund your

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research program.

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But I want to say it's not just about the funding or the funding is not just the reason.

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It's the fact that your work is important and the problem you want to solve absolutely

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should be solved.

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And lives are going to be transformed when your problem is solved.

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And it's going to be so amazing.

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And the downstream effects are going to be incredible.

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Events are going to be touched by your work.

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And so your work is absolutely worthy of seeing the light of day.

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It's absolutely worthy of going forward.

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Your work needs to be done.

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And it needs to be done with funding.

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It needs to be done with money to see your project through.

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Yeah, you could, you know, spend every night and weekend and waking moment doing this work

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by yourself for the rest of eternity.

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And you won't have the kind of impact that you could have if you had money to fund people

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in your program to execute your amazing and incredible ideas.

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And so your project is absolutely worth seeing the light of day.

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The impact is going to make is incredible.

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And therefore your project, your research program is absolutely worthy of funding.

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And so you should write grants to secure that funding.

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Okay, that's number one for funding.

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We've gotten that out of the way.

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Great.

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The next thing is research methods.

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I laugh because when I first started, I had no clue how little I understood about research

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methods.

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I thought as a clinician, I understood research.

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I mean, I was always reading these papers, you know, we were dissecting them.

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We would do journal club.

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We would say, oh, this is how they did this method.

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And then they, I mean, I knew what to do.

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You know how it is where you're a great parent until you actually have children.

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And it's like, what?

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I suck at this.

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Exactly.

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Okay.

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I know I keep making these references.

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I want to be sure to be inclusive.

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It's just, you know, the thing you thought you knew how to do, you criticize people until

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you actually started doing it yourself.

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And you're like, this is hard.

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I have no idea what to do.

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And so that's what grants help you do.

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Writing helps you learn research methods.

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So as a clinician, I was good at clinical stuff.

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But what I wasn't good at was boiling down this huge clinical monster of a problem into

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a small enough bite-sized piece that I could address in a research question.

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I have to tell you how hard that is.

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Oh my gosh.

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I feel like I'm still learning it.

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It is such a challenging task.

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But doing that is part of your learning to do research and learning to do it well.

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And so to be honest, your first couple of grants that you submit, especially if you

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don't have the kind of intense help of a methodologist, they're going to suck.

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Did I just say that?

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Yes.

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Now that I'm a reviewer, reviewing other people's grants, I see the same patterns where clinicians

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are well-meaning.

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They want to cure the patient today.

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Don't tell me that I'm just going to fix a finger.

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I want to cure the whole person today.

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Therefore, I'm going to do this, and then I'm going to do that, and then everything

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is going to happen right now.

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And I'm still guilty of that.

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I just want to fix a lot of things.

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But really, if you're going to do it well, you're going to boil this huge problem down

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into its smallest component pieces, and then you're going to take that tiny piece and answer

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a question.

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Oh my goodness, the discipline of that is super hard.

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But the more you write grants, the more you learn to do that.

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Because time after time and after time again, you get the feedback that this scope is too

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broad, this scope is too broad.

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How are they going to do all this?

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What's the feasibility?

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And over time, you learn to narrow it down and to pare it down until you really get to

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a question that you can answer within the timeframe of the grant opportunity and the

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available funding.

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And so really, as you submit grants, you grow in research methods.

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It's one of the ways you grow as a researcher.

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And I'm speaking specifically to clinicians who mostly do not have research training as

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part of their experience.

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Yes, you may have done a year or two in your postdoctoral fellowship, but for the most

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part, you don't get near the amount of training, say, a PhD researcher does.

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And so to some extent, physicians have an accelerated program of learning facilitated

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by their clinical knowledge, but you still need to learn the research methods.

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And so the more you write, the more you grow in your learning.

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And especially when you're partnering with methodologists, as they're helping you write

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your grants, or at least you're getting advice from them as you're writing, it does help

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you grow in research methodology.

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And that's something worth writing grants for, the benefit of growing as a research

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methodologist.

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Third reason is changing the way you think.

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And I alluded to this in the second reason, the learning research methods section.

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I talked about how as a clinician, especially if your perspective is first the clinician

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before the researcher, is you're thinking very big picture, like very, very broad strokes.

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You are not just here about, oh, what cell is affected when blood sugar spikes?

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What are the signaling pathways activated?

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As a clinician, you're very big picture.

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Like, this is a patient who has neuropathy and also has retinopathy and is in danger

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of losing a foot due to a diabetic foot ulcer.

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You want to answer questions that help the whole patient.

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And for that reason, you kind of just, you know, smush, that's not a technical term,

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but you put all these things together and you roll them out in a proposal and you're

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like, this is what I want to do because I want to fix the patient.

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And you know what?

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Research doesn't work well like that.

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You can't fix the patient in one grant.

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I mean, maybe over several grants over decades, you can fix the patient, but usually not the

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first grant, not the second, probably not the third, because if you're asking the question

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well, you're asking it small enough so you can't answer it all in one question.

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So it changes the way you think because for you to change from your clinician, I want

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to help the whole patient brain to what question do we need to answer?

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What's the next logical step in this big thorny problem that we have?

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It really takes changing the way you think to be able to do that effectively, to be able

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to do that successfully.

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And clinicians don't do that well because it's not part of our training.

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And as you continue to write grants and submit them, it helps you think more critically about

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what can you realistically do in the next two to three years with this proposal.

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And it's really helpful to be able to do that.

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The fourth thing is knowledge.

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And I alluded to this when I did the podcast episode earlier about writing manuscripts.

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The more you write, the better you understand the field.

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The first grant, you write a lot of information.

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But the more you write, the more it becomes clear what the gaps are, what is needed to

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fill them, where are people working, the more you're able to come to the edge of what is

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known and to really project into the future of what could be known and how that could

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change the field.

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And so it grows your knowledge.

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You become a very knowledgeable person at the end of writing any grant in any area.

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And ideally, you're taking all that knowledge that you've gained and you're converting,

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you know, especially what you've written for the significance and innovation into a manuscript

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for submission because other people need to benefit from your knowledge.

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But it's incredible how much you have to grow to be able to write well.

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And so growth in your knowledge is another benefit of writing grants.

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The fifth thing is growing in your skills.

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And so, wow, there's so many skills to grow in as a researcher.

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And again, because of our clinical training, most of what we do is clinical.

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And so growing in research methodology and research skills, growing in grant writing,

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growing in writing manuscripts.

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Those are not necessarily things that we know how to do as part of our clinical training.

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We have to learn them.

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And writing in a way that's salesy, in the way that's selling your science, writing about

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something that you haven't yet done, where you're not telling a lie, but you are imagining

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a future that has not yet happened yet.

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It really takes skill to be able to do that.

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And how do you say it within the one page limit or the 30 lines of text limit that you

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have?

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It really takes considerable skill that you can't master with just one grant.

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You can't master with a second.

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It really takes time.

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And over time, seasoned grant writers, oh my goodness, they write so beautifully.

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They write so beautifully.

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They're able to really make you slobber over a piece of work.

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You're like, I want to fund this person.

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Give me money.

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I'm taking money out of my savings to fund this work.

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I mean, it takes skill to do that.

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It's not luck.

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It is skill.

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It's putting in the reps.

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It's iterating.

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It's growing.

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It's getting feedback.

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It's doing it again.

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You grow.

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And it is amazing.

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I have to say that it's incredible, the kind of growth that happens.

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You don't recognize it until you start to review other people's grants.

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And you're like, wow, okay, I'm growing in these skills.

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And you know, there's always more space to grow too because you don't get all the grants

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that you apply for.

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But it is an incredible opportunity to grow in grant writing skills.

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And overall, it helps you grow in the way you think about your research.

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And that's really awesome.

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That's really, really awesome.

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The sixth thing I want to talk about is it helps you create an umbrella.

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Now, as scientists, we don't really think of ourselves as employers, though some of

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us more readily than others.

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But the reality is the more grant funding you bring into the program, the more people's

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efforts you're able to fund.

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And to be honest, you're employing people.

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And many times, you know, there's a disconnect between the grant funding you bring in and

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the people who are employed to work in your program.

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The reality is when you are able to find funding for your program, so many people benefit.

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Graduate students come and they can be part of your umbrella.

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Medical students can come through, residents, postdoctoral fellows.

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I mean, there is no limit to the number of people who will come and try to be part of

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this wonderful ecosystem of grant funding.

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And it's a beautiful thing because it means your work is moving forward.

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It means instead of you trying to be the only one making the work move forward, you have

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a whole army of people working alongside you to make your work known.

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It's so incredible and so awesome.

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And it is absolutely working and writing grants and submitting them so that you can build

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an ecosystem where other people thrive.

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And if you are someone like me who's underrepresented in the academy, it means that people who are

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naturally drawn to you are able to thrive in the spaces you create because you took

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the time to grow in the skill of grant writing and you have the courage to submit grants

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for funding.

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So creating an umbrella is another reason why you should write grants.

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And then finally, there's the impact.

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There is the impact.

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So there's the obvious impact of pursuing a program of study that's going to advance

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patient care.

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That's the obvious.

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I mean, over the time of the work that you do, you really do contribute to the literature.

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Your work really does begin to become the fabric of the science that we quote.

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You are able to make impact because of the sustained work you do.

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You're continuously writing and submitting and refining and responding to feedback and

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then being funded and going at it again.

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Yes, the impact that comes from your program is going to be amazing.

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And in the process of making that impact, the impact you make in your own life is going

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to be incredible.

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The kind of person you become, someone who doesn't take no for an answer, someone who

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perseveres, someone who says, I'll do it again.

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Okay, I'll submit it again.

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Someone who keeps going despite all the odds.

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It's who you become.

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And it is so incredible.

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There is something about people who've been writing grants for years and years and years.

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And they're like, yep, I'm putting in the next grant.

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Like, what, don't you get tired?

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But they're growing, they're expanding, and it shows.

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They are just amazing and incredible people.

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That's why we want them as our mentors.

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They're so awesome.

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And it's really all this work that they've had to do to keep a program of funding, to

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keep a program of study going, to keep a research program going, being constantly funded.

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It takes an amazing amount of skill, patience, foresight to do that.

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And it's an incredible thing to see yourself growing into that over the course of your

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career.

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And finally, that's the impact you make on the people who come into your program.

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The medical students who didn't have a project until you became the umbrella, where they

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could do their project.

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The residents who wanted to get a taste of research, and they could do it because your

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program was available to them.

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It's the impact in the number of people that you are able to bring in under your umbrella

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as you are growing as a scientist, you are growing other people as well.

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And that's really incredible.

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And I would say of all the reason, to me, this is the favorite one.

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The fact that there are people who can come alongside you and make impact together with

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you while also advancing their own careers.

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Yeah, those are the things I wanted to point out.

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So number one, funding.

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Number two, growing in research methods.

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Number three, changing the way you think as a clinician, really growing to think like

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a true scientist.

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Knowledge, because you're writing all this stuff and you're growing in knowledge.

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Developing your skills, especially in skills of grantsmanship, creating an umbrella where

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other people can come.

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And impact, the impact you make on your field, the impact you make in your own life, and

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the impact you make in the lives of others as well.

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And I will tell you that for all of that, it is worth continuing to write and submit

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grants to grow your research program, to grow your funding portfolio, and to create the

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umbrella that the world needs.

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So I invite you this week to write out for yourself your own reasons why you submit grants.

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Write out the things that you, the joy, the benefits you've gotten up until now.

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Don't focus on all the grants you haven't gotten.

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Don't focus on all the things that didn't work.

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But write about the things that you have benefited from in your grant writing.

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Just make a list and think about it as a gratitude list.

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And if you find some unusual ones, I would love you to come share it with our audience.

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Leave us a voicemail on the clinicianresearcherpodcast.com website.

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And if your voicemail is selected, it will be played on another episode.

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We will build an episode out of your podcast voicemail.

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So please, I invite you to do that today.

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All right.

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It has been such a pleasure talking with you today.

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I'm going to thank you again for taking the time to listen, and I look forward to talking

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with you again the next time.

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Thanks for listening to this episode of the Clinician Researcher Podcast, where academic

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clinicians learn the skills to build their own research program, whether or not they

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have a mentor.

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If you found the information in this episode to be helpful, don't keep it all to yourself.

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Someone else needs to hear it.

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So take a minute right now and share it.

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As you share this episode, you become part of our mission to help launch a new generation

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of clinician researchers who make transformative discoveries that change the way we do healthcare.